The best sports news apps for Android

Sports nuts will feel right at home with these great apps

If you're a sports fan you're well catered for on Android. For most of the major sports you'll find official apps, unofficial apps, news apps and team apps. It's easy to fill up your phone with a whole bunch of different apps for different sports, but what about if you want something to cover off multiple sports in one go. Well, there's a bunch of good ones for that, too.

So without further ado, here's some of what we consider to be the best sports apps for Android.

TheScore

TheScore has been a favorite of many for a long time now and as every update arrives it gets just a little bit better, still. Be it MLB, NFL, NBA, Soccer, NASCAR, NHL and many others, theScore will keep you in good stead. One of the best features for the sports fanatic is the ability to customize your own feed, with teams, scores and news that you always want to see.

Pair this with alerts for goals, key moments, final scores and breaking news and with one app you're never more than a quick glance away from the absolute latest, up-to-date information. It bills itself as "real time, all the time" and that's probably the best way to think about it. There's a ton of good stuff in here, it's completely free and it's definitely one for the sports fans' arsenal.

Yahoo Sport

Yahoo makes some really great apps for Android and its dedicated sports news app is no exception. As with the other leading apps it covers pretty much all of the sports you're ever going to want to know about and as is usual with Yahoo apps it looks pretty good while it's doing it. While it lacks some of the personal touch you get with something like theScore, Yahoo Sport will give you the same great collection of content.

It also lets you set up custom alerts for a variety of different options and if you sign in with a Yahoo account you can sync your customizations across your devices.

CBS Sports

If you can overlook the in-app advertising – something the likes of Yahoo Sport don't have – CBS Sports is a pretty slick sports news application. Like others it lets you select your favorite teams and set up custom alerts of a series of different options, as well as providing you a general overview of all the news. The live game trackers are a particularly nice touch.

It doesn't have the range of sports others do, but it covers as much soccer as you'll ever want to see as well as the likes of F1, NASCAR and the major U.S. sports. It looks pretty great, too, especially on a tablet.

Sports Republic

Another one that looks good on both phones and tablets, Sports Republic has plenty of content – including videos – for the top sports you'll want to follow as well as couple of neat little touches. One such is TagNav, allowing you to search for stories you want to read by a particular tag to help you find them easier. The more you use it, the smarter it gets and the better tailored the content you see will be.

Where Sports Republic stands apart from similar apps is its more visual approach to presenting you the content. Everything has big, bold photos and it's available in 8 regional variants to help you further pinpoint the sports you'll want to be following.

ESPN SportsCenter

When you see ESPN you see sports. An internationally recognizable source of all things sporty, SportsCenter is the one you want from ESPN if you're interested in following a bunch of different sports. With the power of the ESPN newsroom behind it you've got live scores and breaking news galore in a pretty great looking app.

Pair that up with customizable alerts, video content and a pretty deep social integration, ESPN SportsCenter is definitely one for the sports nuts to have around.

Your picks

So, those are some of our favorite general sports news apps that the Google Play Store has to offer. If you're using something not mentioned that you think is particularly worth a shout out, do share it with us in the comments below!

I switched to the CBS sports app after ESPN changed from ScoreCenter to SportsCenter because they took away the ability to easily follow news and scores from my favorite teams. I've really liked CBS sports.

One football app that really needs a mention is Samsung's Kick. Maybe not the most detailed app out there, but I think they released it with one single purpose; to make all of those above aware that you can actually make beautiful apps without everything stuttering and jerking around all the time when you touch the screen.

Ive used every single one, and there is nothing that comes close to B/R. The notification alone are killer, so precise and exact. I was at the beach today and got all my NFL and NBA updates for my individual teams, including tweets. I also got NFL news just like that, faster than my Google NOW is setup.

I literally posed in Phil's editors blog this would be a good idea (but for american football) yet this is good as well. Very timely as colleges start up and the NFL nears its official start this week. Bravissimo to you Mr. Devine, and anyone else involved in this article.

I've used TheScore since its BB days. The app could use a design lift, but it does the job and well. Like the simplistic design of CBS Sports, and wish the app and the website were a good replacement for the gossip rag which is ESPN. However, basic elements like viewing scores from yesterdays play at the US Open are unavailable through the app. Also, I opened up the GameTracker for a football this past Thursday night. The score in the tracker was 7-0 with 8 minutes left in the first quarter. Turned the game on the TV and the score was 7-3 with 2 minutes left in the 1st quarter. That's stuff that TheScore doesn't mess up with.

I agree. theScore is my favorite app by far. I like the fact you can even follow specific players, which is nice if one of your favorite players leaves your favorite team.

What I don't like is the push notifications are very inconsistent. It never seems to send me all of the notifications it should, and sometimes it seems to just take the day off. I have run through troubleshooting many times and it seems this is the best I can do. Anyone have any hints?